South Kesteven District Council (SKDC), like other public sector organisations, faces a backdrop of rising demand for services whilst budgets are tightening. To do more with less resources, South Kesteven partnered with a private sector organisation using Intelligent Automation to support the delivery of their digitally enabled transformation programme.
The team identified four priority focus areas for automation – Revenues & Benefits, Housing & Repairs, Development Management and Customer Services – covering 12 processes. The implementation of Intelligent Automation at SKDC brought about numerous benefits, including:
- Transforming the workforce: the automations enabled SKDC staff focus on more value-adding, customer-focussed activities
- Improving customer experience: processes are performed quicker and more consistently, enabling frontline staff to spend more time supporting improved outcomes of residents
- Normalising innovation: the use of new and innovative technology has been embedded within the council, with the team now looking at other innovative solutions and delivery approaches
- Demonstrating the power of collaboration: the private/public sector joint teams delivered automation at pace, sharing insights to deliver more efficiently.
For their success, SKDC have been nominated for the RPA Newcomer of the Year Award at the upcoming Excellence in Connected RPA Awards 2020.
The team are now looking to collaborate with other innovative local authorities, who are keen to reuse the work already delivered at SKDC and build on this across other council processes. The aim is to help other local authorities accelerate their own transformations, increase knowledge sharing, build economies of scale and reduce the cost barrier of entry that small public sector organisations may face.
If you would like to hear more, please join us at UKAuthority’s Powering Digital Public Services event this Friday (15 May), which is free to attend for the public sector – you can register here.